Celebrity encounter, and day of rest to start the tour
So yesterday (Thursday, actually) I had a lunch appointment in downtown Minneapolis with my Aunt and another woman from the UP who's a prominent Finnish-American. I brought Paavo and Svea with me, and we met with the ladies to enjoy some food and shoot the breeze about our Ishpeming upbringing and our common Finnishness.
As me and the kiddos waited in the hotel lobby, who do we see entering the lounge area but singer/songwriter Mike Doughty and his touring multi-instrumentalist, Scrap! I'd never met Mike before, or seen him in concert, but I'm an avid reader of his excellent blog (Mike had his Mac laptop out, and was tapping away like a good blogger should), and I totally love his album Haughty Melodic, so it was cool to see him. I walked up and introduced myself and exchanged a few words, but I was very pleased to introduce Mike to my son Paavo. In early 2006 I got Mike's album, and way back then Paavo loved the songs, especially "Busting Up a Starbucks" and "I hear the bells." Pretty funny to see a then-2-year-old singing along to those tunes. Paavo thinks that every musician we listen to is somebody that we know, or could meet whenever we'd like to, and this just serves to confirm his suspicion (He always asks when we can hang out with Avril Lavigne). Mike Doughty was polite and nice, but seemed a bit confused to meet this preschooler who knew his songs. I enjoyed meeting/seeing him in person, 'cause he's one of the few musicians that people say that I look like.
Here ends the celebrity report.
I'm on the tail end of a very very nice Friday. It's the start of my big East Coast tour, and for scheduling reasons I came out here today and had no gig, and nothing to do. SO, I was able to orchestrate a nearly ideal day for myself. This has been the schedule:
Morning: hop a plane from Minneapolis to Philly...read the last few weeks' worth of The Onion newspaper during the flight
1:30PM Land in Philly, get my bags, get my rental car (a Dodge Charger!), plug in the iPod, and cruise down I-95 listening to Philadelphia band The Hooters.
3PM cross the Delaware border, and enjoy a late lunch at Macaroni Grill while reading the new issue of Paste Magazine (good feature on rockstar rehab by David Mead)
4PM check into this hotel, get settled
5PM hit the mall, shop at H&M, visit with Israeli vendors selling Dead Sea Salts...they asked my name, I told them, and mentioned that I knew that my name means "God's Gift" in Hebrew, and they asked me if I was Jewish! Pretty cool. Nope, not Jewish, but Finnish. Pretty close!
6PM visit Barnes & Noble and page through the new book "Lyrics by Sting." He just got voted one of the worst lyricists of all time, but I love his lyrics! Especially "Wrapped around your finger" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."
7PM see the movie "Gone Baby Gone"...what a great movie, with killer performances from Casey Affleck, and everybody else, too. Nice direction, Ben.
9PM back to the hotel, hot tub and swimming pool
10PM watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO. Pretty funny.
11PM watch "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. Great, but featuring scary hecklers in the audience!
Midnight: watch some HBO original show called "Tell Me You Love Me"...pretty good, like "Desperate Housewives" with men, too. Horrible character behavior, though. Who could stand these people in real life?
1AM Post this blog.
Okay, tomorrow's my first show on the tour. Gotta get to bed.
As me and the kiddos waited in the hotel lobby, who do we see entering the lounge area but singer/songwriter Mike Doughty and his touring multi-instrumentalist, Scrap! I'd never met Mike before, or seen him in concert, but I'm an avid reader of his excellent blog (Mike had his Mac laptop out, and was tapping away like a good blogger should), and I totally love his album Haughty Melodic, so it was cool to see him. I walked up and introduced myself and exchanged a few words, but I was very pleased to introduce Mike to my son Paavo. In early 2006 I got Mike's album, and way back then Paavo loved the songs, especially "Busting Up a Starbucks" and "I hear the bells." Pretty funny to see a then-2-year-old singing along to those tunes. Paavo thinks that every musician we listen to is somebody that we know, or could meet whenever we'd like to, and this just serves to confirm his suspicion (He always asks when we can hang out with Avril Lavigne). Mike Doughty was polite and nice, but seemed a bit confused to meet this preschooler who knew his songs. I enjoyed meeting/seeing him in person, 'cause he's one of the few musicians that people say that I look like.
Here ends the celebrity report.
I'm on the tail end of a very very nice Friday. It's the start of my big East Coast tour, and for scheduling reasons I came out here today and had no gig, and nothing to do. SO, I was able to orchestrate a nearly ideal day for myself. This has been the schedule:
Morning: hop a plane from Minneapolis to Philly...read the last few weeks' worth of The Onion newspaper during the flight
1:30PM Land in Philly, get my bags, get my rental car (a Dodge Charger!), plug in the iPod, and cruise down I-95 listening to Philadelphia band The Hooters.
3PM cross the Delaware border, and enjoy a late lunch at Macaroni Grill while reading the new issue of Paste Magazine (good feature on rockstar rehab by David Mead)
4PM check into this hotel, get settled
5PM hit the mall, shop at H&M, visit with Israeli vendors selling Dead Sea Salts...they asked my name, I told them, and mentioned that I knew that my name means "God's Gift" in Hebrew, and they asked me if I was Jewish! Pretty cool. Nope, not Jewish, but Finnish. Pretty close!
6PM visit Barnes & Noble and page through the new book "Lyrics by Sting." He just got voted one of the worst lyricists of all time, but I love his lyrics! Especially "Wrapped around your finger" and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da."
7PM see the movie "Gone Baby Gone"...what a great movie, with killer performances from Casey Affleck, and everybody else, too. Nice direction, Ben.
9PM back to the hotel, hot tub and swimming pool
10PM watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO. Pretty funny.
11PM watch "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. Great, but featuring scary hecklers in the audience!
Midnight: watch some HBO original show called "Tell Me You Love Me"...pretty good, like "Desperate Housewives" with men, too. Horrible character behavior, though. Who could stand these people in real life?
1AM Post this blog.
Okay, tomorrow's my first show on the tour. Gotta get to bed.
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